Exchange Invest Weekend Edition?2698: Big GDP, Bigger Bonds

Demography, Kremlinology, pipeline culprits, big GDP, bigger bond markets, legal failings & Brexit, Marxist Horrible Histories & more…

Exchange Invest is a unique information resource combining the day’s stories in a newsletter for investors in exchanges/financial markets infrastructure.

Exchange Invest was founded by former exchange CEO and author of the first bestselling book of fintech (“Capital Market Revolution!” FT 1999) Patrick L Young. Monday through Friday our daily paid subscriber email discusses the business of bourses of all kinds across the world.

This weekly edition is a magazine of broader macro topics as well as including our free weekly podcast which reviews the highlights of the week in the world’s market structure.

On this day in 2013, KONEX Market was launched.

IN BIGWORLD

From Exchange Invest 2694: Tuesday, June 27th:

So look here are the takeaways from Russia right now:

1. Disinformation is everywhere, even in Western media.
2. Putin is fatally holed below the waterline - but could hang on for a year. I would suggest he is at T+30 on top of a serious breakthrough by the Ukrainian counteroffensive which is now ongoing.
3. Belarus may be more unstable given recent health concerns of leader Lukashenko who apparently brokered the peace deal between Wagner and Russia.?
4. Wagner is keeping its lucrative overseas missions - Thus it remains a cash cow militia in other words and is clearly more coherent than the Russian military.
5. The Russian military in Ukraine is unlikely to have better morale (severe understatement) after the weekend’s events…Reports that Wagner shot down 7 Russian aircraft during their brief coup further damn Russian military competence.
6. …It also encourages the question, where did Wagner get their anti-aircraft missiles from… Were they really Soviet-era Strela-10s which downed some rather modern Russian electronic warfare helicopters for instance?
7. I would believe the Biden admin that they had nothing to do with the coup - they are so out of their depth they didn’t see it coming.
8. Ultimately Prigozhin would have known he was on a very dangerous mission to get into Moscow and take control, as such coups rarely succeed but in being the person to finally unmask the hollow dictatorship of Vladimir Putin, he lives to fight another day (proclaiming he never went after the President per se he just wanted to defend Wagner) and soon there will be an overthrow of the current 23-year long regime.
9. At the same time, Prigozhin will likely face all manner of assassination attempts now - he clearly must not stand near high windows lest he commits suicide. This is acutely true as suddenly Mad Vlad is calling for retribution against the Wagner Group having sued for peace with them at the weekend.
10. A lot of media have focussed on how Prigozhin was not officially endorsed by any leading generals or politicians during his march towards Moscow. This misunderstands the delicate balance of Russian relations. Much more conspicuous was the abject absence of public cries of support for Mad Vlad from the self same military / political elite. Their tacit nature reminds us of the first day of the Gorbachev coup in 1991 when the police had a vast number of officers call in sick… They ebbed back to work when it became clear the coup had failed so they found themselves on the ‘right’ side without having to actually do any ‘siding’ as it were. Nobody is rejoicing in Putin’s leadership or going out of their way to support him. Ergo, he is toast.
11. Where the US presidential election is a case as I have noted before of “If one octogenarian stands he loses, if both stand we all lose.” Russia now has a case of Mutually Assured Destruction brewing where both Mr P’s may end up very very dead indeed although Prigozhin just might have a slim chance of becoming if not President at least a leading figure of influence on the Moscow regime if the actual coup comes soon enough. Realistically?both are dead men walking.

IPO-VID LIVESTREAM

NOW ONLINE!

Season 19: Episode 04: IPO-VID Livestream 112

Tuesday, June 27th: 1800 UK, 1900 CET, 1400 EST

“Yra Harris: Patience Is A?Virtue”

Yra Harris has over 46 years of experience in all areas of commodity trading, with broad expertise in cash currency markets, Yra is an active macro-global trend trader. He is a regular guest analyst on Currency & Global Interest Markets on Bloomberg & CNBC.

Watch the stream on:

Facebook

LinkedIn

YouTube

IPO-VID LIVESTREAM PODCAST

In IPO-VID Episode 104: Patrick L Young was joined by serial bestselling author, historian, and sociologist, Dr. Rainer Zitelmann.

Listen to this fascinating episode discussing “In Defence of Capitalism.”

Now available from multiple different podcast sources including:

EI Website Spotify Google Podcasts Apple Podcast

EI WEEKLY?PODCAST

National Stock Exchange Ordered Back To School

Hong Kong Exchanges Open Their Office In New York City?

And Euronext Exits Clearnet

The Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast 200

VICTORY OR?DEATH

20 years on from the first fintech bestseller “Capital Market Revolution!”… “Victory Or Death” is a must read book for anyone interested in the intersection of Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and FinTech as part of the whole future of finance.

Available worldwide.

FINANCE BOOK OF THE?WEEK

In response to reader’s queries, we have added a book of the week column to the EI weekend edition — You can sign up for EI Weekend for free at ExchangeInvest.com incidentally.

We’re choosing interesting books pertaining to exchanges and markets, investment et al.

Today marks the 24th anniversary of my very first book “Capital Market Revolution! — The Future of Finance in an Online World.” I remember the week well, it was published in London with a launch party at the British Library in the middle of IDW.

Thos picking up the book now might struggle to recall the ‘radical’ nature of the tome at the time as — with hindsight — so much seems just so logical but at the time it was not and I can well recall the luddites eager to stop the message

In retrospect, “CMR!” was the first bestselling book of fintech, a decade before that term even gained traction. It’s a pacy read and there’s all manner of stuff in there like electronic money, the future of financial centres, the rise of prediction markets, how the ETF would become the staple of the fund industry and much more including of course how electronic for profit exchanges would become the dominant model of commerce in 21st century markets with CCPs becoming increasingly the epicentre of market probity.

“Capital Market Revolution!” delivered a new vision of financial markets outlined clearly and succinctly in print for the first time. The career of its author, Patrick L Young remains a matter of life and pith.

Get the book here. Or better still why not get more up-to-date thinking and buy a copy of “Victory or Death.”

Suggestions welcome if you would like to nominate a book for us to cover!

Our next Book of the week will be unveiled Saturday in the EI Weekend Edition.

& don’t forget if you want all the news on the bourse business sent daily to your Inbox subscribe to Exchange Invest — via Exchange Invest.com — it’s only $349 per annum to join “The Exchange of Information.”

BITCARNAGE

Brussels Bifurcates

In Bitcarnage this week, Binance left a few more jurisdictions, bringing in their most senior woman to offer a lengthy “4:FUD!” via Bloomberg and the MSM finally got around to appending words like “crisis” to CZ Inc.

It was a bad week for the highly paid lawyers in the cryptosphere for SBF where he now gets 2 trials, no loss of cases being brought and had a few raps across the knuckles inferring he was digging for info as opposed to actually legitimately trying to pass the blame to his former law firm. Then the FTX liquidator described truth, honesty, transparency and competence — you know, routine day to day business stuff — as “a mirage” at SBF Inc. Ouch!

A few weeks back in a tantrum which would have embarrassed an over-sugared teen, the crypto bros were all heading to Yurrop ‘cos they had passed MICA and that was paradise. We urged caution as the EU has a great history of saying one thing and doing another — Thus rapidly even the EuroParl started worrying that maybe the kids weren’t infallible after all and thus we’re at that stage where the regs are being written which may differ a lot from the rose-tinted perception of MICA as first passed.

Anyway, the ultimate bifurcation took place on Friday when in Brussels there is one (perceived) EU policy but at the national Belgian level, the regulators said “nah” to Binance: Binance Ordered To Cease All Crypto Services In Belgium (Bitcoin.com News): “Binance has been ordered by Belgium’s regulator to cease providing any crypto exchange and custody wallet services in the country.” Markets Regulator Belgium Binance Suspend Crypto Services.

…However, Europe is the future it seems thanks to MICA, oh wait…Crypto Traders Are Betting On Asia As A Haven After US Crackdown (Bloomberg).

If you enjoyed this excerpt you may be interested to know that you can read Bitcarnage every day in Exchange Invest.

Alternatively, if you want to follow Bitcarnage — the daily update on happenings in the world of crypto and digital assets, then you can find Bitcarnage as a standalone on Substack.

Podcasts This?Week

Is It The End Of Silicon Valley?

The Spectator

“Feudalism with better marketing”

MACRO THOUGHTS

1. Sergey Radchenko elegantly surmised the current Russian situation in the Spectator a few days ago:

“As so often with Kremlinology, we can see that dogs are fighting under the carpet but we won’t know who will prevail until one emerges on top.”

2. As noted in a discussion with my excellent guest Yra Harris on IPO-VID 112 this week — when the original hardline coup against Gorbachev took place, the world’s markets were paralysed with fear and talked of nothing else…whereas in 2023, the Wagner coup barely managed a ripple across global markets — how times change.

OF INTEREST

As always, a review of interesting reading to provoke thoughts and consideration… Not sure we agree with much of it….but it’s thought-provoking!

Ranked: Top 10 Countries By GDP Per Capita, By Region In 2023

Visual Capitalist

PLY: Now compare this with:

Ranked: The Largest Bond Markets In The World

Visual Capitalist

Who Blew Up The Nord Stream Pipeline?

Foreign Policy

PLY: The other week it transpired the American navy didn’t want to rain on the parade of a ridiculously confected argument about the possible rescue of the ill-fated souls who plunged to their deaths near the Titanic by revealing they heard the explosion of the submarine as it originally dived to the world’s most famous wreck.

Meanwhile ‘nobody’ can tell us who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline… h/t Ann Berg for this excellent piece of analysis, See which you prefer, the thoughts of the commodity markets expert or the US policy analyst above?

China Population Timeline 1949–2022: How Has A Demographic Crisis Emerged?

South China Morning Post

Brexit Has Been Botched — Our Legal System Is To Blame

Telegraph

PLY: Another fascinating column from Barnabas Reynolds.

The Marxism Of Horrible Histories

Unherd

UNODC World Drug Report 2023 Warns Of Converging Crises As Illicit Drug Markets Continue To Expand

UNODC

The Street Price Of A Gram Of Heroin Across Europe

ZeroHedge

PLY: Another h/t to co conspirator Ann Berg for spotting this. Interesting growing trends and a clearly vast series of arb windows albeit there appear to be regulatory issues around bringing forward a single European market despite the EU claiming to want such a thing in other products…

LAST WORD

…If you want to stay abreast of the world of exchanges then please Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter — free 30 day trial.

Or Subscribe to our EI Weekend newsletter in Substack — it’s free.

You can also check out the “Reflections From Young’s Pyramid”, it illustrates the relative value of exchanges around the world.

Or the “ICE Cost of Borrowing 2020–2022” An Interest Rate Comparison, which illustrates the end of the funny money era of QE and how interest rates have already had a major lurch up from their previous region of zero to, even negative, levels.

At the least can you like this article, or leave us a comment, we welcome your feedback.

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

LINKEDIN

If you enjoy our multimedia, then please Like / Subscribe to our video channel: IPO-VID In Patrick’s Opinion.

Catch up on Monday for Exchange Invest 2699…

The future continues in the water cooler of the bourse business…

- Patrick